The Girls They Left Behind (18 page)

They had been married for seventeen years and she had brought into his life the first real love he had ever known. It was not something he would give up easily.

Ethel Glaister put down her book and glanced restlessly about the room. She was fed up with being on her own. She wanted someone to talk to.

Ethel’s older children, Joe and Carol, were out at work all day, and her husband George was away in the Army. And although Ethel was houseproud and liked to keep her home ‘nice’, her real pleasure lay in showing off her home to envious neighbours. Otherwise, she occupied herself with reading romantic novels or going to the cinema.

But it was nicer to have someone to go to the pictures with, so that you could talk about the film on the way home.

Ethel had no friends in the streets nearby. But she had noticed Kathy Simmons and her two little girls going up and down October Street and heard how they’d been bombed out. Kathy had come from Portchester Road, where the houses were a bit bigger than those in October Street and had bay windows, so she was obviously used to something better, and the girls might make nice friends for her Shirley.

She went out into the scullery, took off her blouse and had a wash at the sink. Upstairs, she put on her second best blouse, the one with the frilly collar. Her best blouse had frills all the way down the front, but that was too much for an afternoon call. Her powder-blue jacket would be nice, though, and her grey skirt. A lot smarter than that old herringbone jacket and brown skirt Jess Budd always wore to the shops, and it would show Mrs Simmons that although April Grove might be a backstreet it was no slum.

Carefully, she polished her black high-heeled shoes, and minced across to the corner and over to number 16.

Kathy Simmons had been trying once again to rid the Anderson shelter of the smell of cats.

It had been hard work moving in. Nobody had thought to give the house a clean and Kathy, arriving from a home in which nothing had ever been out of place until Hitler got his hands on it, had found herself spending the first part of her five pounds on brooms and scrubbing brushes, just to get it fit to live in. The old lady didn’t seem to have decorated for years, and the rooms were dark and dingy. There was no electricity, and only the two downstairs rooms and lean-to scullery were lit with gas. Upstairs, you had to use candles, and you had to take a candle with you to the outside lavatory.

How romantic, she thought. That’d get Mike in the mood when he came home!

She had spent the morning scrubbing the scullery, and felt proud of her efforts. The walls were still brown, but at least it was a lighter shade of brown, and the old linoleum on the floor had turned out to be yellow. There were still a few stains she couldn’t shift, but on the whole it looked much better.

Almost cheerful, in fact. And although she’d felt tired from her efforts and knew she ought to rest in the afternoon, she’d been unable to forget the smell in the shelter, and determined to have another go at it. If they were going to have to keep on going down there it might as well be as homely as it could be, and she didn’t want to have to take her baby down there with it smelling the way it did.

Besides, she had found that it was only by keeping busy that she could keep the memories at bay. The siren wailing just as she was giving the girls their supper. The planes roaring overhead, the whistling of the bombs as they fell and the explosions all around. And then coming out of the shelter to find her home destroyed, with only a few fragments left whole. And Muriel’s doll like a baby amongst the rubble, its face smashed, its body torn and broken. A baby, abandoned to the fury of the enemy…

Only constant work, a determined effort to put the

memories behind her and a smile on her face, could keep such horrors out of her mind.

She gave the shelter another thorough scrub and had come back into the house for more hot water when she heard the doorbell ring.

Drat! She stood for a moment, hesitating, the kettle in her hand. Could she ignore it? No, better not. The girls had gone out to have some lessons in a house up in Deniston Street, and it might be something to do with them. She’d never forgive herself if anything had happened to them and she’d refused to answer the door.

She set the kettle back on the stove. It was still whistling gently as she answered the door and found Ethel Glaister standing on the step.

For a moment or two, she thought that it must be to do with the girls. Or perhaps with the house in Portchester Street.

The woman standing on her step was too smart to be anything but an official of some sort. Maybe she was from the Assistance Board, come to see what Kathy had spent the five pounds on. Or perhaps - her mind flicked to Mike. Had anything happened to his ship? The baby inside her gave a sudden kick and she covered it with her hand as if to protect it from shock.

Ethel Glaister stared at Kathy, her eyes moving from the dirty working skirt to the old blouse which was covered by what looked like a man’s shirt. She looked doubtfully along the dingy passage. Mrs Simmons had seemed a clean, respectable sort of woman in the street, but this looked no better than a slum after all!

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, backing away. ‘Perhaps you’re too busy, I’ll come back another day.’

Kathy smiled. Now that the first surprise had passed, she was beginning to recognise her visitor. She lived nearby, somewhere in April Grove. Kathy had seen her walking up and down the street, always smartly dressed, her yellow hair waved and her face made up. Perhaps she’d come to collect for something, war savings, perhaps, or another Spitfire fund.

In any case, it would be nice to have someone to talk to for a bit.

‘It’s all right,’ she said. ‘I’d nearly finished. To tell the truth, I shouldn’t have been doing it anyway. I’m supposed to put my feet up in the afternoons, but I couldn’t put up with the stink any longer … Did you want something?’

Ethel cast a nervous glance along the passage and then up and down the street, as if afraid to be seen. ‘No - oh no,’ she said hastily. ‘I just called, you know, out of friendliness. You being new here, as it were. I thought you might be pleased to meet one of your neighbours.’

‘That’s nice of you,’ Kathy said cheerfully. ‘Come in and have a cup of tea.’

She brushed a hand down her front and grimaced. ‘Sorry I’m in such a state. I’ve been scrubbing out the Anderson.

You wouldn’t believe the state it was in, I reckon every cat in the street’s had a pee in there. Cost me a fortune in Dettol, it has.’

Ethel opened her mouth to protest but Kathy was already disappearing into the back room. Distastefully, she followed, trying not to let her powder-blue jacket brush against the walls. It looked as if they could do with a scrub too, she thought, but it was clear that young Mrs Simmons had been doing her best with the back room and scullery, which both smelt strongly of yellow soap.

All the same, she was swiftly revising her ideas about making a friend of the new neighbour. And as for letting her Shirley come over here to play …

‘Sit down.’ Kathy waved at the sagging armchair. ‘Not much of a place, is it, but I’m thankful for anything, I can tell you. Goodness knows where the furniture came from - I stand it out in the back yard when the sun’s shining and give it a good beating, you’d be surprised what comes out! Still, it’s better than nothing.’ She went out into the scullery and Ethel could hear her putting tea into the pot and pouring in boiling water.

‘Did you lose everything?’ Ethel asked. She moved away from the armchair and perched on the edge of an old kitchen chair, hoping that Mrs Simmons had at least wiped off the grime.

‘The lot. Everything we owned. Well, except for a few bits

and bobs that we managed to salvage next day. The place just collapsed, you see, got a direct hit.’ Kathy rattled cups and saucers together. ‘Sorry I can’t offer you sugar, I keep it for the kids. They need it, poor little mites.’ She came into the room with two cups of tea and handed one to Ethel. ‘People don’t realise that kids lose everything too, in air-raids. All their clothes, their toys and books, all their little bits and pieces. You don’t get any money to replace them. My Muriel had a baby doll, thought the world of it she did, and she’d just put it in its little cradle when the siren went. I wouldn’t let her go back for it and it got smashed to smithereens.’ Her eyes filled with tears. ‘I’ll never really forgive myself for that. We found it, you see, its face all broken. Muriel cries for it every night.’

‘Better a doll than her, though,’ Ethel said. ‘Dolls don’t matter. What about your hubby, then? Someone told me he’s at sea.’

‘That’s right, in the Merchant Navy.’ Deliberately, Kathy forced her mind away from Muriel’s broken doll. It haunted her dreams too. It had looked so much like a baby … ‘He doesn’t get home much now. I was hoping he’d be around when the baby’s born.’ Unconsciously, she caressed her rounded stomach. ‘I don’t suppose he will, though.’

‘There’s not many men round here now,’ Ethel remarked.

‘Only Frank Budd and Tommy Vickers and people like that who’ve too old to be called up. My George is in the Army, of course. He went straightaway, he was in the Territorials, you see, and they had to report for duty the minute war was declared.’ She touched her hair. ‘Well, we were on holiday in Devonshire when it was actually declared but naturally we came home at once. We knew our duty.’

Kathy wasn’t quite sure what to say. She picked up her cup and said, ‘It seems quite nice round here. Quiet.’

‘Well, it isn’t bad, I suppose,’ Ethel said grudgingly. ‘Of course, if it hadn’t been for the war, we’d have moved. I want a three-bedroomed house with a proper bathroom. Semidetached, you know. And with George doing so well at his job, we’d have been able to afford it. But now that all this has started -‘ She shrugged, looking irritated. ‘I told him, there

wasn’t any need for him to go dashing off, but he would go and now we’re on Army pay, and that’s not much, I can tell you!’

Her voice had taken on a querulous note. She sipped her tea, holding her little finger out daintily. Kathy looked at her, at the powder-blue jacket and the frilly blouse and the carefully waved golden hair. What was she doing here? Why had she come?

‘You’ve got two little girls, haven’t you?’ Ethel said. ‘I see you’ve not sent them away, then.’

‘No, I’d rather we were all together. And I want to be in Pompey in case Mike comes home unexpectedly.’ Kathy spoke with a touch of defiance in her tone. People treated you like a bad mother, not sending your children to the country.

But from some of the stories she’d heard about evacuees, it sounded as if they had a worse time out there than if they’d stayed in the city. She hated to think of Stella and Muriel, far from home, with strangers who didn’t understand or care about them. Better here. And hadn’t she already proved that if you got into a shelter in time, you were safe?

‘I’m thinking of sending my Shirley to Canada,’ Ethel said.

‘You don’t know who they’re mixing with out in these villages, do you? They’re taking a whole shipload of kiddies to Canada on a liner. I think it’ll be a good experience for her.’

Kathy stared at her. Canada! It was on the other side of the world. And they might be gone for years. Why, they’d be strangers when they came back.

‘Of course, you’ll be used to something better than this,’

Ethel remarked, glancing disparagingly round the bare little room. ‘I mean, the houses in Portchester Street are quite a bit bigger, aren’t they? You must miss it, coming to a place like this.’

‘It’s no good thinking like that. I’m just glad to have a house. And I can soon get it looking nice, once I get hold of a pot of paint and a bit of wallpaper. And then I can ask people in without apologising for the state of it!’ She laughed.

‘Oh, I’d be careful who you asked in,’ Ethel said quickly.

‘I mean, some of the people round here are very nice in their way - but there are a few I wouldn’t want across my

doorstep, I can tell you.’

‘Well, I daresay I’ll soon find out who suits me,’ Kathy said.

‘Jess Budd’s nice.’

‘Oh, Jess is all right, if you like that type of person,’ Ethel said dismissively. ‘Rather a mousy little woman, I’ve never been able to see what her husband sees in her, myself. Now there’s a fine figure of a man, Frank Budd, you’ll have seen him walking home from work, I daresay. A big, tall man. He works in the Dockyard. And there’s the Shaws, in number 13, on the other side of the Budds, I don’t have much to do with them. Peggy Shaw and Jess Budd are very thick. And Vi Redding, next door to Mrs Shaw, well, the less said about her the better. Have you seen the state of her front step? But the person you really want to be careful of is Mrs Kinch - Granny Kinch, they call her. She sits on a chair at her front door all day, keeping an eye on everything that goes on. Used to stand there for hours, till her varicose veins got the better of her.’

‘I’ve seen her. She gave the girls some toffees one day.’

‘Oh yes, she does that, always likes to get the kiddies round her. A real nosy old so-and-so, she is. I wouldn’t let mine get round her door. And you know what they say about Nancy, of course.’

Kathy shook her head. ‘Nancy?’

‘Nancy Baxter, so-called. Her daughter. Supposed to be married to some high-up, only sometimes they say he’s a soldier, sometimes he’s in the Navy, they don’t seem to be too sure themselves, and you know what that means. Anyway, whatever he is - if he exists at all, which I take leave to doubt you never see him down April Grove, though you might see plenty of other men.’

Kathy gazed at her. There was a peculiar, avid excitement in Ethel’s eyes and now and then she licked her thin lips. I don’t want to hear this, she thought. This is what she came for, to pass on her own spiteful gossip. I wish she’d go.

But Ethel was now into her stride. She leaned forward and spoke in an exaggeratedly low whisper, mouthing the words as if they might be overheard. Kathy drew back a little, feeling the same distaste as Ethel had felt as she walked along the dingy passage. She had the same sensation of not wanting her clothes to brush against the other woman, of not wanting to be contaminated.